Secrets of the Job Hunt

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Those looking for work in Northern Ohio may find something among Cleveland job prospects.

The United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics notes the Cleveland area had a total non-farm employment of 1,080,000 people in June 2008, an decrease of .6 percent over the previous year.

According to the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services, the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor metropolitan statistical area had a total non-farm employment of 989,700 in 2006, a 6.6 percent decline since 2000, but a slight increase from 2005. In 2006, the area's unemployment rate was 5.4 percent, a 1.3 percent decrease from 2003.

It is projected 57,300 new jobs will be created between 2004 and 2014. The fastest-growing sectors include: healthcare and social assistance with 19,600 jobs, administrative and waste services with a 21.7 percent gain, professional, scientific and technical services with a 15.6 percent gain and wholesale trade with a 10.7 percent increase.

The fastest-growing occupational groups are expected to be: computer and mathematical, healthcare, business and financial operations, education, training and library occupations and construction and extraction occupations. Office and administrative support occupations are expected to have the most average annual openings.

On average, there should be about 31,000 job openings per year in Northern Ohio.

"Many of the occupational groups with high average annual opening figures are those with high replacement needs such as food preparation and serving and sales," the OJFS states. "Note that although production occupations are expected to shed over 7,000 jobs during the period of analysis, there will also be a large number of openings. About three out of every four job openings are for replacement hires."

There also are about 100 occupations considered to be high prospect occupations, meaning they pay at least $12 per hour and have at least 50 average annual openings.